Slashdot Mirror
21 Million German Bank Accounts For Sale
anerva writes "Black market criminals are offering to sell details on 21 million German bank accounts for €12M ($15.3M), according to an investigative report (German; Google translation) published Saturday. In November reporters for WirtschaftsWoche (Economic Week) had a face-to-face meeting with criminals in a Hamburg hotel, according to the magazine. Posing as buyers working for a gambling business, the journalists were able to strike a price of €0.55 per record, or €12M for all the data. They were given a CD containing the 1.2 million accounts when they asked for assurances that the information they would be buying was legitimate." 21 million is three in four existing German bank accounts.
Couldn't you just buy one to begin with and then use that German bank account to buy the rest?
You'd think they'd have gotten the police involved instead of trying to scoop a story...
Nah, guess not.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
In theory, if the banking system were known to be compromised in such a huge way, and there were no way of knowing if your own bank account was compromised or not, shouldn't there be a massive bank run? Because everyone wants to withdraw their money right away to minimize the chance that this ridiculous security leak negatively affects them, right? Such a massive erosion of confidence can completely destroy a banking system.
Even their criminality is impressively efficient :-)
I record my sleeptalking
Yah, ho hum. I mean, I bought my first 21 million German bank accounts YEARS AGO. Nothing to see here folks.
This morning the entire banking system in Germany collapsed due to 3 in 4 Germans transferring money out of the country to banks in neighboring countries....
I think the taggers in this story need to learn how to spell "Scheiße"
It is possible that not all of the 21 million work, or are valid. If I were in the criminal's position, I would offer a CD where about 70% were valid. And then when the payment was made, provide a data set that had only a few working accounts and a bunch of garbage.
In any case, it's pretty scary to think that there might that much personal data out there.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
Who wants a mass list anyway, you can't target spam at people just because they're German and they have a bank account, and stealing that many identities begs the question, "why?"
Yeah, who could have use for the equivalent of 21 million valid direct debit cards.
Rule 36 states:
There will always be even more fucked up shit than what you just saw
Now, I've been saying this all along, but nay sayers think the sky will never fall, and that the government is not out to get them. I've got bad news for you: It will, and they are, and if those two problems are not enough there will always be people willing to steal your stuff. period. no exceptions.
The fact that they have not stolen yours yet is merely an oversight on "their" part. It will happen at some point. Security is myth. Do not trust those that want to protect you. The government will never shield you, only pretend to do so. This is a harbinger of dangers to come, and reason to demand with some vigor that your financial institution be held accountable by law for the protection of your information. Yes, I mean that. If they want to do business with my money, I want guarantees. You should too.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
dann kamen sie fur meine Kreditkartennummer- und Provider-Kennworter.
Ich zahlte 10 Euro und aller, den ich erhielt, war Orion Blastar' Konto-LOGON und -kennwort s-Slashdot.
Just kidding, Babelfish doesn't translate it quite right.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Who wants a mass list anyway, you can't target spam at people just because they're German and they have a bank account, and stealing that many identities begs the question, "why?"
Yeah, who could have use for the equivalent of 21 million valid direct debit cards.
How do you propose to obtain the 21 million valid direct debit cards? Ring up the banks and get them to change the address of every account to your address?
Sorry, I missed the "equivalent of". But an account number is not the equivalent of a direct debit card. It's not that easy to withdraw money from an account when all you have is the account number.
...they analyzed the bank accounts and the combined total in them is less than $1 million?
Ha Ha! You have a small country !!1!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Every time you write a check, you're giving the recipient your bank address, bank account number ... AND a specimen of your signature. OMG! Quick - millions of people compromised their bank accounts today!
If you talk to the Russians, I reckon they would say they "eat 21 million German bank accounts for breakfast". I guess it's only news because it's a western European country.
It's not like getting valid numbers is hard these days though. I mean just google for tons of pages describing it and you can effectively have all the valid numbers you want.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
21 million is a lot of accounts. No one person or group has time to abuse all 21 million accounts in a timely fashion. More likely, one would need to rely on the lackadaisical attitude most people have when it comes to security coupled with a low volume approach to the number of transactions to an external account in order to profit from purchasing all 21 million accounts.
The purchaser would also have to consider just how many accounts would be accessible and for how long. It might not be practical to expect to make significantly more than 12 million euros even with 21 million accounts, since most accounts would probably have low balances or have their passwords, etc., changed rather quickly if the account had a high balance.
So to use this many accounts, one would need to set up a number of new accounts in other banks (a few at a time and more than one so that the number of transactions to a given account would not be too high), then siphon a little bit of money off a few stolen accounts to some of the new accounts, withdraw the money, then close the new accounts almost immediately. The amount withdrawn would need to be random and small enough to escape detection for at least a few days. Anything faster would surely raise suspicion and cause automatic transaction blocking (at least, if the banks have some kind of working fraud prevention), especially since the announcement of the stolen data up for sale. I can also imagine adding a fraud check for a slurry of never-seen-before transactions to new accounts. Wire transfers would be quickest, yet they would also stand out more (since a bunch of new wire transfers from accounts which had never made a wire transfer before would be unusual -- the likely case for most accounts).
The 12 million price tag seems like a number arrived at by the thieves after taking into account the difficulties to be faced in exploiting the 21 million accounts while they are still exploitable. It seems likely that any purchaser would in turn sell them again in smaller blocks (a lot safer that way, relatively speaking).
Wonder if we'll ever find out what eventually happens?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
This is the scariest headline I've read in a long, long time. If this information allows remote access to the accounts then a concerted group effort could _completely_ destroy most German depository institutions by conducting mass withdrawals.
If German banks have reserve requirements similar to American banks (10%) then they would only have enough capitol to cover 1/6th of the potential withdrawals. Not only would this lead the banks not to have any working capitol (the life-blood of every bank. See: 02008 financial crisis), but would leave nothing left over for uncompromised account holders. Deposit insurance notwithstanding, I'm sure you know what would happen if the general public found out about this.
Organized criminals smart enough to buy 24M bank accounts are probably also smart enough to know this and take advantage of the corresponding extortionary power. I seriously cannot believe we are reading about this. If I was in German law enforcement there's absolutely no way I'd let this story see press. The fact that it was undercover reporters and not cops in that meeting amazes me.
I really, really hope that the cops and banks react more swiftly to this story than the German public. I'm also praying that the mechanism by which this information was stolen is limited to Germany...
the Linux desktop market share in Germany is only 25%.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
lmao.
buying bank accounts in bulk is soo..... 2007...
You have to keep in mind the differences between countries.
In Germany, the most popular way to order stuff online is to give your bank account number to the merchant who will then charge your account.
It works just like a credit card number and stores rarely check if the number (account) really belongs to the person that's making the order.
The only time I have encountered such a check was with Paypal: ..I actually don't remember right now..either enter the correct amounts into a form on Paypal's site or to send the cents back to prove that you really have access to that account.
they do two small test transactions (just Cents) and you have to
That's 20 (twenty) million and nine hundred ninety nine thousand and ninety nine accounts, douchebag.
Sig this!
...Such as Iceland?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Nice combo-post there. You start with a subtle misunderstanding of the topic, move to a non-sequitur, then finish with a classic "begs the question" dismount.
You have to keep in mind the differences between countries. In Germany, the most popular way to order stuff online is to give your bank account number to the merchant who will then charge your account. It works just like a credit card number and stores rarely check if the number (account) really belongs to the person that's making the order.
So what protection do you have if a merchant charges incorrectly? If bank account numbers can be used like credit card numbers then bank accounts should have the same sort of fraud protection as credit cards.
Just adding my bit to the spirit of your post if I may: I want to believe
I live in Lima Peru. Last week a teller at my bank made me wait 10 minutes while she waited for the safe to open to give me some cash. In the meantime I went to a computer terminal without a keyboard, and access to only a webpage with the bank rates (windows, no start menu, no access to desktop etc). The machine was supposedly locked so that you couldnt navigate away or do anything except scroll the page and click a few links. Well, they forgot do disable right-click. 7 steps later I was able to access their internal network, and had access to a lot of internal information on individual machines. I went to the branch manager and showed him. He was surprised and embarassed, and took note of the steps I took. It was amazing how easy was to do it. The 7 steps were clever, but not impossible.
Seriously, is this story a plant to "shove" the German banking system into the same "tornado" that the English, Irish, Americans, etc.. have been experiencing lately? Seriously.. have not the Germans been hanging onto their economy (by a thread I may add) while other EU countries have spiraled? I smell a "fish".. . Get German citizens to withdraw their money from banks and cause yet another country to collapse.. .
"Trusting every aspect of our lives to a giant computer was the smartest thing we ever did.." Homer Simpson
Yep, AC hits the nail on the head here... if 21 million is allegedly 3 in 4 German bank accounts, then there's only 28 million accounts in Germany and the remaining 82,369,552 Germans (minus the 14% under 15, say) obviously keep their cash in their mattresses.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
You can reverse the charge within a 6-8 week timeframe with no questions asked, which then puts the burden on the merchant to prove that the charge was legit.
21 million is three in four existing German bank accounts.
I have for sale EVERY VISA NUMBER EVER ISSUED! From 4000 0000 0000 0000 to 4999 9999 9999 9999! (Note: some numbers may not be valid.)
I will sell them for US $1,000,000 MILLIONS US DOLLARS. Contact me via this website.
Act now and I'll throw in every Master Card ever issued. (5000 0000 0000 0000 to 5999 9999 9999 9999) (Same disclaimer as above.) And no identity thief would be complete without a REAL SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER to go with it, eh? Guess what? That's right--I'VE GOT THEM ALL TOO! (001-01-0001 to 999-99-9999)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Seriously? That's a bit backwards.
In Australia you give someone your BSB (bank identifier) and your account number, and all they can do with that is put money INTO your account.
Therefor the worst someone can do with a whole host of these is to go on a mass donation binge.
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here. [16software.com]
Is your PrntScrn key broken?
In November reporters ... had a face-to-face meeting with criminals
So, where were the cops? How do you say "Denny's" in German?
Seriously, most of our local police force is working undercover at the local titty club, buying lap dances.
Have gnu, will travel.
Wow, that's so behind. In Norway, there's no way to charge an account without full ID. This means either approving a direct debit by showing up at the bank with your picture ID, or logging on through the (relatively) secure website.
Just allowing anyone to put a charge on a bank account number like that opens up for all sorts of abuse. Tiny transactions can go unnoticed for a long time.
Of course, debit cards in stores aren't really any safer. Nobody has ever checked the signature on one while I've used them. A signature is required when the system for some reason can't contact the bank and verify the PIN. I've used other people's cards just fine (with permission, of course, but the banks might find me signing my name a bit funky ;).
Anything but cash is broken, obviously :(
Plus, in Norway there were Vikings. And Vikings rank only slightly behind Pirates and Ninjas on the Cool-O-Meter (tm, patent pending).
Dude, I don't think Microsoft would stoop that low? Really?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
You must be pulling that out of your ass.
The vast majority of online stores want to be paid in advance or with pay-on-delivery. Stores charging your bank account are really the minority.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
PayPal normally makes two deposits into your account for a few cents, and you then report to paypal how many cents were deposited so that you can verify you are the account holder. I think slashdot found a solution to the age old four step profit formula:
Step 1: Open a PayPal Account
Step 2: Verify Account Information
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 Many Times
Step 4: Profit!
Sig: I stole this sig.
Actually, not all merchants offer this and I'd only give an Einzugsermächtigung (direct debit authorization) to a company I trust to not abuse it, like one of the big tradidtional mail-order companies. I know I can issue chargebacks but still.
The default mode of operations for smaller mail-order/online-order companies is advance payment through wire transfer (or sometimes PayPal) or payment-on-delivery. Advance payment is what I usually use; it doesn't grant random companies access to my account and doesn't cost me any money, unlike payment-on-delivery.
I have a credit card but that is only for international orders where a CC works better than the alternatives.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Perhaps the GP is referring to the Steve Jackson Games raid that took place here in Austin, TX back in the eighties.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Yes, we switched to Linux. All of us. We can tell because all Germans share a hive mind. That's also why we all use the same bank account (plus 20,999,999 business accounts).
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
As trampel pointed out: you have a 6 weeks reveal time frame. What trampel missed is: A real fraudster will have moved the money onwards by then. Which puts the loss to the bank.
Of course: As with riding without a ticket in the end we the honest customers will pay through higher bank/ticket changes.
I would find it to be completely unsurprising to find that the source of this information is someone within the German government, an employee, had collected and made available to criminals this information. It would seem an information pool this large could only come from such a source. Other data compromises, in my view, would seem individually unlikely to product a rate as high as 75% of all.
If I am right in this guess, it would show a strong reason why any government should not be collecting this kind of data on people. Not only is it a certainty that government itself would abuse the information, but employees with access to it would be tempted to abuse it. The government extracts far more trust of its people than it is deserving.
I have for sale EVERY VISA NUMBER EVER ISSUED! From 4000 0000 0000 0000 to 4999 9999 9999 9999! (Note: some numbers may not be valid.)
Well, do you also have the personal data belonging to those VISA numbers? Like, say, owner, expiration date, etc? Because that's what this 21M bank account list is all about: it contains not just account numbers, but also all associated identifying data (names, addresses, dates of birth, in some cases even a balance).
Armed with that, criminals can easily charge those accounts and EVERYONE in Germany MUST now check their accounts at least every 6 weeks and issue reverse-charges if they discovered fraudulent activity. And that's not always obvious, because criminals can charge small amounts and label them rather innocuously, so they could go undetected (or rather: unnoticed) for longer than mere 6 weeks.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Um. Yes it is. I can go to any branch of my local bank any time, tell them my name and account number and withdraw up to EUR 5000,-- with just a signature.
Bank: Deutsches Bundesbank, good morning, how may I help you? :D
You: Yes good morning. I'd like to order some debit cards for some accounts of mine. I hope you have your coffee, this is gonna take a while.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Yeah, my Stolen Identity server offers and xml-rpc service and has a twitter account I happen to follow.
You need a bit more than just the account info. You also need a sucker, having the qualities of stupid, gullible and greedy.
You get that account info. Next, you send out spam asking for people who want to earn a load of money for little, easy work. You are allegedly a big, international company that doesn't have a local office and wants to avoid the horrible local fees they impose on foreign companies (that bastard government wanting to rip you off, ya know?) when they open an account there, so you want to give that person, say, 20% of the transfered amount. Yeah, paying someone 20% of 10k is cheaper than whatever some government charges foreign companies for having an account... I didn't say it makes sense, ok? I said you need someone who is stupid, gullible and greedy.
When you found your sucker, you use that system to transfer money from the account that you know of to the sucker's account, and inform him that he has to immediately take the money (he may keep his 20%, of course) and send it to you through a way that cannot be reversed. Say, Western Union.
What happens next is that the person whose account you used for the transfer will notice a serious amount of money is missing and has his bank reverse that transaction. His bank will do that, no questions asked.
And the sucker's down 10k (minus the 20% he may keep, of course), because Western Union will at best laugh at him when he wants his money back.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Don't you have to use a manual transfer first before you can establish direct debit? I think most stores are like that.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Since more than one person asked what you could do with this information, allow me to tell you a few things how the system works here in Europe.
The first possible use I have detailed above, you find some gullible fool, transfer money to him, have him forward money through WU or some other company that doesn't allow reversals and you get money.
If you need more privileges to the account, call their 24 hours service. They will ask you to identify yourself, and for this you need your account number and your name, and since you have forgotten your supersecret phrase, they will ask you for details about your account that only you usually can know, like your balance or the person responsible for you at your bank (every account here has its "personal account assistant", i.e. some person working at the bank responsible for pushing products at you). This allows you to request things mailed to your address (or change your address while you're at it), to get, say, online banking credentials, bank cards (for withdrawal), PIN numbers, replacement Credit cards and so on.
Given a recent demand from the European Union that made our formerly rather secure mailboxes (the snail mail ones) pretty insecure (to enable various hardcopy spammers to dump their junk into our mail), it's trivial to intercept the letters containing that, since they're sent out as standard mail (no signatures necessary).
Of course you can also bypass that and use phone banking, the only risk is that you're actually dealing with a real person which might (just might, they're quite underpaid and thus incredibly motivated to think past what they're paid for) just smell a fish. Or phish, for that matter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you talk to the Russians...
So you could say, "In Soviet Russia, 21 million German bank accounts buy You!"
Yeah, well, except that with advance payment you (usually) have no way at all to get your money back in case of fraud. Both CC and Lastschrift (the "give the retailer your account details" thing) is much safer (yes, I am German) than simply wiring some money and hoping the goods are delivered some day... Going to the bank and telling them you want some money charged back where you yourself initiated the exchange (Überweisung) is always an exercise in fun, and if you even find a bank employee who knows it is possible and legal, you have only a 14 days window instead of 6 weeks with CC and Lastschrift. If the retailer initiated the transaction it should more or less work like with your CC institution - talk to them about it, and it should get charged back right away.
And goddamit, Slashdot, it really is 2008, get your Unicode fixed, for crying out loud.
??? WTF? A bank allows ANYONE to debit from your account WITHOUT any authorisation?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I live in Germany. It really is like that here. Some shops (Beate Uhse is one I can name off the top of my head) even give you 14 days to transfer the money.
I just bought a new MacBook from Apple.de using Bank Transfer. Took a day or two longer, but I'm typing it on it now :)
cmd-q.co.uk - some sort of stupid fucking internet bullshit
You know that there is no need of proof of that authorization? (Thats exactly the difference between EinzugsermÃchtigung and Abbuchungsauftrag)
All it takes is a single signature (on the side of the merchants bank) stating that he wont ever withdraw money from someone elses account without permission. It's up to the merchant how he obtains said permission. OTOH it's up to him to show evidence of that permission if (and only if) he's dragged in front of a court.
bickerdyke
Yep. That is essentially the system. It is your responsibility to check each month that the charges that were made were in fact authorized. As I understand, they are very good about chargebacks (suprisingly), though I have never had to actually do this. I have used this method of payment primarily with Amazon and with airlines, but it's very often an option. Germans don't particularly like credit cards (partly because German banks don't really "get" them -- most "credit" cards actually automatically suck the full amount of the bill out of your account on the due date... which means you're not worried about exhorbitant interest rates, but you're only barely buying on credit. It's actually more of a delayed debit card.)
Actually, its fairly safe, you can request the bank to return any money taken from your account this way, and then the onus is on the retailer to prove you recieved the goods they charged you for.
Thats only used for money transfers initiated by the costumer. And as there is proof that it was indeed the account owner transfering the funds (he used his secret TAN&PIN) those transfers are really hard to reverse.
It's the other way round with those Lastschriften (direct debit) easy to initiate by anyone, easy to reverse by the account holder.
bickerdyke
Strange, in Poland Paypal withdraws money from your credit card to verify that you are indeed the holder...
21 million is three in four existing German bank accounts.
Errr.... no?
Germany has about 80 mio. people living in it. Almost everyone who is not a small child has a bank account here. Most kids are given one by their parents somewhere around age 6-10 (depending on the parents) for savings. A lot of people have more than one bank account. One in four sounds more like it.
And that's just private accounts. I can't even guess at the number of bank accounts that companies have.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No, it's very common in Germany since credit cards are actually pretty uncommon (people can pay with debit cards in stores and you can get cash in forgein countires with German debit cards at Maestro-enabled ATMs).
And debit cards don't have a particular key-card number so these don't work for such transactions.
Furthermore, the payment from the account is actually pretty risk-free. You have several weeks to issue a "charge-back" with no conditions or costs attachted. The transaction fees for these charge-backs usually go with the store which issued the transaction in first place. So as long as you check your account regularily you are pretty much safe.
Have a look here to get an idea of what he's suggesting: [http://shafee.net/blog/?page_id=295]
All you need to do is to generate the numbers and then throw out the ones that fail the checksum and viola, you have a list of valid numbers. What you don't have is the details to go with it, which is why it's a joke.
Having said that, CC security IS a bit of a joke. I know of a *perfectly* safe CC that goes beyond the "card present" requirement for security and does not need a secure terminal infrastructure because the card itself is safe. And it doesn't need installation (i.e. it doesn't matter if the system used for transmission is edge-to-edge infested with every trojan and MITM attack known to man), nor does it have postal theft risk as it does not need pre-customisation like an "ordinary" CC does.
It does, however, still need some time to be distributed so I don't expect that thing to make a dent in CC fraud until well into 2010. If VISA and Mastercard accept it to start with..
Insert
What do you mean behind?
Pirates took inspiration from Vikings. Actually, pirates is just a veak imitiation without a real hat
In Germany you can. It is enough to give the shop 'your' bank account and they will withdraw. The actual owner has of course a chance of making the transaction void. Whether that is easy to abuse on a mass scale I am not sure.
nevertheless in Germany privacy and law is not taken that seriously by the state especially if it associated with filling up the state's coffers so I guess that is desired development here.
Pfft. We recently moved to Norway. The envelope of letter that my gf can now fetch the card from the bank was not closed. Additionally, she did no have to show her ID/passport when fetching the card. ;)
I suppose Germans are way more sensitive and bureaucratic
21 million is three in four existing German bank accounts.
Certainly not. Germany has over 80 million inhabitants, and it is very common even for
"ordinary people" to have more than one account. And that's not counting all the corporate accounts,
small businesses with accounts at every local bank, etc.
Of course, this doesn't mean there isn't a problem. It is estimated that the data of more than 80% of
german bank accounts can be pruchased on the black market. But this would be way over a hundred million accounts.
Wow, that's so behind. In Norway, there's no way to charge an account without full ID.
Yes there is. I've been quite scared to learn that it is possible to charge my account using my Maestro card
without its PIN code in Norway. I've been asked "Do you have a PIN code for that card?" regularly when
paying with it all over Norway - apparently, it is quite common for norwegians to have cards without them. In
such a case, the store clerk is supposed to check the ID. Guess how good or how reliably this works, especially
with foreign IDs...
Sounds like a story the government could feed the press in order to catch people. Similar to government run websites that look like terrorist or kiddy porn sites.
Maybe, maybe not
??? WTF? A bank allows ANYONE to debit from your account WITHOUT any authorisation?
No. At least not in theory. The person/corporation/entity charging yout account has to get your permission
to do that first (called "Einzugsermächtigung"). Then, everyone wanting to do such charging has to get it approved
with their bank, which is not completely automatic - non-commercial entities need a very good reason to be
allowed to do that.
However, the existence of such an "Einzugsermächtigung" is not checked by the banks, so if you claim to have one, the default is
to believe you. But this also means that if such a charge happens without one, it can be reversed indefinitely. Banks like to
tell teir custemers that there is a six week limit on this, but this is only valid for charge reversals on charges that were done by
someone actually having the account holder's permission.
The whole system works surprisingly well.
Oh, yeah. The difference between Vikings and Pirates can't be more than a few megafonzies.
My UID is prime. Hah!
"Hi, me and my friends want to buy this aircraft carrier. Can we split the check evenly over 21 million debit cards?"
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Cash theft is a significantly more proven technology than any of these other methods.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
I don't think it's that Germans don't "get" them.. it's more that they were invented to circumvent the 17th century backwardness of the US banking system. There wasn't ever any need for them in Germany, and the high charges (for the merchants) are not suited to make them popular if better solutions exist.
Note that you can overdraw your account anyway, so there is no need for the "credit" functionality either.. and since the account is balanced by the next payment from your employer, you are on average less due than with a separate "credit" account of your card.
Think would bother you if you only stole $1 from every account once a month?
Just allowing anyone to put a charge on a bank account number like that opens up for all sorts of abuse. Tiny transactions can go unnoticed for a long time.
I cannot see how it differs from credit card. In Brazil, only companies can charge to your credit card. That means, the company must exist as legal entity.
So, why would it be different with your bank account? It is all about your money, right?
ilex paraguariensis for all
Most of those Vikings went to England and became ancestors of those skinheads that like bashing people up for fun.
:)
Those that stayed in Norway (and the rest of Scandinavia) were the far more peaceful folk who didn't feel like travelling to other countries to bash people's heads in.
That's true in 2008 you can actually buy banks themselves in bulk. Gotta love the credit crunch.
Someone did this. There was a /. story. I am too lazy to look it up.
Uh, common with non-PIN cards?! Which Norway have you been in? I've grown up here, and have yet to see a debit card (like Maestro) which does not require a PIN to work.
So, create a fake legal entity. Bingo?
and here's this one gold bar, I'm sure you can tell that it's real gold. Yessiree, real gold. That whole box in the truck. But of course, all you can check is the one bar.
These are, after all, criminals that you are talking about. Who is to say that they were not also con artists?
However, if you assume that even half the account IDs on the disk were valid, that's still in the neighborhood of 2% of all German accounts (if the 21 mil = 3/4 number holds true).
Why don't people seem to like the Soviet Russia thing that much anymore? I think it's hilarious every time even though I'm not really sure why.
So its like Superman 3 but with PayPal?
Um. Yes it is. I can go to any branch of my local bank any time, tell them my name and account number and withdraw up to EUR 5000,-- with just a signature.
But the onus is on the bank to ensure the signature is legitimate. If the owner of the account contests the withdrawal and the bank can't show an accurate signature then the bank will have to refund the withdrawal. So the account owner is protected. For the banks protection they tend to have security cameras so the criminal is taking a significant risk in trying to physically withdraw money.
You certain about that? Cause that's what this guy in the UK thought.
Those thieves should be super rich by now.
Selling a CD Rom to a news crew was just the beginning, I bet.
They are probably selling the other 120 copies they'd made of that CD Rom to other people/groups in other countries all this past week.
These are thieves. after all_
If it has tires or tits, it will give you problems.
Um. Yes it is. I can go to any branch of my local bank any time, tell them my name and account number and withdraw up to EUR 5000,-- with just a signature.
But the onus is on the bank to ensure the signature is legitimate. If the owner of the account contests the withdrawal and the bank can't show an accurate signature then the bank will have to refund the withdrawal. So the account owner is protected.
... which has nothing to do with me being 5000 Euro richer :)
But the onus is on the bank to ensure the signature is legitimate. If the owner of the account contests the withdrawal and the bank can't show an accurate signature then the bank will have to refund the withdrawal. So the account owner is protected.
... which has nothing to do with me being 5000 Euro richer :)
Right, but since the banks screwed up in the first place I'm not too bothered if they foot the bill.
What is sheer idiocy is storing them in a central database like the US and UK do - I agree with you 100%.
That is one single point of failure: change the record and you are indeed screwed. However, have them as means to access a local resource (like a biometric card that holds the prints as a has ON THE CARD ITSELF and doesn't send them onwards) is a good idea.
There's also the use of biometrics. For identification it sucks, because of the granularity you WILL get eventually identical results (as an example, if I use hair color as metric I will start to get repeats after I've done about 5 people - and here too I have some people that do not register at all because they're bald). This is also why big databases are simply useless. It's as useful as assuming that everyone called George Bush is/was a president..
However, for authentication it works as you need a much lower granularity to guarantee exclusivity. All I need to confirm is that for a given situation there is a high probability that I have indeed the right physical person. That works, because I pair that with a username or account.
And here endeth today's lesson. Sorry if it was a bit lecturish, but the distinctions above are critical to evaluate the use of biometrics in context. Whoever wants to store biometrics in a big database needs to explain to me first why he thinks treating me as a criminal in advance of a crime is acceptable. And that's the same question YOU should ask - as that precedes all this "if you don't have anything to hide you won't mind" nonsense that is spouted so often as an argument why it might be acceptable. It isn't.
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I wonder if that is where they get the money to verify American accounts!
Sig: I stole this sig.